Monterra's Deliciosa & Other Tales &

by Anna Tambour

  No more feet, he announced the next day.

  The glory days of new retirees and hand dinners were coming to a close. Only two more hand repasts were booked, with no more coming. Didier was a happy man, though. He'd experienced highs few men have a chance to attain. They would end soon but the memories would live on in his tastebuds for the rest of his life.

  ~

  Meanwhile, Choku and Krishchin seethed. They wanted to retire, too, but didn't want to suffer for it. One night, they stole Detenamo's old boat, and took it to Paurotown and got drunk in the bar facing the docks. On their fourth beer each, when almost plastered, they were pulled aside by the boat captain of the Venture.

  "What's this I hear about all the blokes with no hands on Sufisi?"

  Choku's beer slopped in his glass.

  He was terrified of spilling the beans. He knew the threat uttered against traitors would be carried out.

  "Lucky for Tenuat Lenuru that he got out. He's such a worm," the drunk captain careened. "You Sufisians too much man for me."

  "Tenuat Lenuru?" Choku repeated. He didn't have to add, the man who stole everyone's money to get Krishchin to sober up. They were both fully alert now.

  "Where?" Krishchin sneered disinterestedly, while Choku looked quietly on.

  "Down in Bougan Street—usually in here drunk on Friday nights, but ..." gabbled the captain (he must have been pickled), "don't tell him I tole you. Now what's this hand thing?"

  "A much-man thing—you know, like tattoos," the two men giggled drunkenly, "but we're too scared to do it."

  ~

  They went back on Detenamo's boat that night—very sober. The next night, painted ferociously with purple ink from violet moonshells, they broke into Lenuru's house.

  A terrified Tenuat Lenuru tried to hide under his bed, but was dragged out, gagged, and carried out by a panting Choku, while Krishchin looked everywhere for the money. There was nothing much to be found.

  They had expected that. But their fortunes were made.

  As they motored the boat home, they discussed their plan. They decided to leave the heavy work to the morning, but the impatience of both meant that the best part couldn't wait.

  It was hardly light when they banged on Didier's door.

  He answered it himself, still rubbing his eyes.

  Choku and Krishchin judged Krishchin to be the most eloquent speaker, so it was he who announced, "Misser Didiyae! We brought you head!"

  ~

  For those of you curious about its preparation, first remove dentures, then wipe inside mouth cavity with salt ...

  Literary Titan, Asher E. (huh?) Treat

  The greatest story ever told was penned by a man who not only never won a literary prize, but who would not have been invited to dinner anywhere it counts.

  To be sure you have never read it, unless you also fall into the category of people whom other people think of rather like pet skunks.

  For I am sure Asher E. Treat was a rotten dinner guest, and never occupied himself with who slandered whom or who was cheating on ... and he probably knew not a single Hemingway anecdote.

  But with the certainty of a fanatic and the purity of rainwater in the Himalayas, he wrote, "At whatever point one picks up the story of the moth ear mite, he is almost sure to be fascinated by what he sees."

  And he proceeds to tell you all about it, leaving no milestone unturned in the tumultuous life of a creature that you host in the thousands in each ear, with the society in your left and your right being as alien as you would feel wandering in a strange land where everyone was busy and you could not understand one word.

  Not only does Mr. Treat go into minutiae about minutiae. He makes the saga into a page-turner with an exactitude of word and attention to detail that is poetic, even about even more unpromising subjects than his protagonist:

  ~

  The fecal matter is hygroscopic, swelling and softening in moist air, reversibly shrinking, darkening, and hardening when the atmosphere is dry. One wonders how this affects the microclimate of the colony ...

  ~

  And by gum, one does wonder! What makes his writing so compelling? Partly his enthusiasm and certainty that we will fall under the spell, too. But bores often think themselves fascinators. Treat's charm wells from his complete honesty of reporting. We know there is no spin or set of preconceived notions packaged neatly as a report of scientific "findings."

  No—here is science as it once was, and always still is amongst the great. The science of the initially clueless, with a mind open to surprises, hungry for revelations though not willing to invent them, not for any reason. Dedication such as is only practiced amongst those whose back is bent, both figuratively, and in his case I am sure, literally, though most likely, he never noticed it. No more than a prospector who can't stop panning.

  The clincher to the charm of his story, and his science, is the fact that his subjects are not objects. He has an unembarrassed passionate relationship with these tiny subjects. He loves them and clutches them to his curiosity as an old prospector does that gold nugget he will never sell. And so as he learns, he reveals, with the skill of Poe.

  ~

  Since the previous summer I had been examining the ears of almost every kind of tympanate moth that came to my collecting light. On the night of 5 July, 1952, I found a 'volunteer' that had somehow got into the attic of the country house where we spent our summers; it was flying about the lamp on my laboratory table. I had finished work for the night but couldn't resist the temptation to inspect the ears of one more moth.

  ~

  It is rare to find writing that contains information that you know you didn't know, but which also has the ability to make you laugh, and cry. But the beauty of a dedicated life of unprejudiced inquiry combined with a never-to-be-dulled brilliance of aha! (as they say in haiku) about the natural world, makes the life of Mr. Treat nothing less than that of a prospector who becomes a wealthy man. But he is a philanthropist here, because in writing his great story, we can share his wealth.

  For us, the readers, his tale is nothing less than unforgettable, for it is his humility that finally does what only the greatest literature can. When you least expect it, the words reach out from the depths of his story, and clutch your heart with a truth so profound, it's simple:

  ~

  The magic of the microscope is not that it makes little creatures larger, but that it makes a large one smaller. We are too big for our world. The microscope takes us down from our proud and lonely immensity and makes us, for a time, fellow citizens with the great majority of living things. It lets us share with them the strange and beautiful world where a meter amounts to a mile and yesterday was years ago. Let us shrink to the height of a moth ear mite...

  ~

  So there we have it. Plot, motivation, drama, an open mind endlessly discovering and revealing surprises—and an author being true to truth, and himself. What else could be more the essence of greatness in science, literature, and ... come to think of it, life itself?

  ~

  Book hunt:

  Mites of Moths and Butterflies, by Asher E. Treat, Cornell University Press, 1975

  The quotes above are excerpted from this book, as the chapter entitled "An Earful of Mites" in Insect Lives: Stories of Mystery and Romance from a Hidden World, edited by Erich Hoyt and Ted Schultz, John Wiley & Sons, 1999.

  Pearls

  Oysters will never be fish

  no matter how hard they try.

  They'll never be able to

  hold an umbrella

  or wiggle their fins

  in the sky

  Oysters will never be fish

  no matter how hard they try.

  Fish will never be oysters

  no matter how hard they try.

  They'll never make pearls

  from grit in their throats

  Their small irritations

  they just have to tote.

  They can fly (some of them)

 
; but they can't laze and gloat

  No, fish can never be oysters.

  No matter how hard they try.

  And we can never be oysters

  nor fish

  though we shut ourselves up

  and our thoughts often swish.

  Though we often feel gritty

  inside where it irks,

  "I'll be nacred!"

  will not be a possible perk.

  We can never be oyster

  nor fish

  nor clam.

  No matter how hard we try.

  Our pearl is knowing

  I am what I am

  though I'll be buggered why.

  Publishing history

  "Klokwerk's Heart" copyright © Anna Tambour, was originally published in Strange Horizons, December, 2002.

  "The Eel" copyright © Anna Tambour, was originally published in Quadrant Magazine, No. 375, Vol.45, Number 4, April 2001.

  "The Curse of Hyperica" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "Temptation of the Seven Scientists" copyright © Anna Tambour, was originally published in Infinity Plus, February 2003.

  "The Afterlife at Seahorse Drive" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "The It and the Ecstasy" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "Travels with Robert Louis Stevenson in the Cévennes" copyright © Anna Tambour, was originally published in Infinity Plus, February 2003.

  "The Chosen" copyright © Anna Tambour, was originally published in HMS Beagle: The BioMedNet Magazine, Issue 102, May, 2001.

  "Stargazing" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "Kidnapped!" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "The Helford Deal" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "Me-Too" copyright © Anna Tambour, was originally published in HMS Beagle: The BioMedNet Magazine, Issue 92, December, 2000.

  "Crumpled Sheets and Death-Fluffies" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "Sweat, Joy and Thunderation" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "Valley of the Sugars of Salt" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "Chatechismic Chaos" copyright © Anna Tambour, was originally published in HMS Beagle: The BioMedNet Magazine, Issue 111, September, 2001.

  "Dr. Babiram's Potentials" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "Exhibition" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "The Refloat of D'Urbe Isle" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "The Apple" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "The Rest Cure" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "The Magic Lino" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "Call Me Omniscient" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "Bluebird Pie" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "Picking Blueberries" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "The Wages of Food-Play" copyright © Anna Tambour, was originally published in Quantum Muse, November 2001.

  "The Ocean in Kansas" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "Monterra"s Deliciosa" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  "Literary Titan, Asher E. (huh?) Treat" copyright © Anna Tambour, was originally published in Public Scrutiny, May 2002.

  "Pearls" copyright © Anna Tambour, is original to this collection.

  Roos at the beach

  We've all gone down to the surf again,

  the joeys with us too,

  though humans wonder what we see

  in this grassless saltsea stew.

  We wonder too,

  what humans see

  in those balls they chase around.

  For when we've finished bathing

  we go to higher ground

  to watch the silly golfers

  while we laugh without a sound.

  ~

  COMMENTS

  Jayaprakash Satyamurthy:

  When the next dominant species excavates our remains, golf will be the single reason they will conclude we could not possibly have been the previous top species, let alone sentient.

  Anna Tambour:

  Ooh hoo! Perhaps I should report a conversation that I recently overheard during a journey to Planet X, some years in the future.

  Xientist 2, an underling: "These balls are a life-form in a state of dormancy."

  Xientist 1, the leader of the team: "Have you probed them?"

  Underling: "That is the first thing I did. They expelled their digestive organs."

  Leader grimaces. "They'll be sure to grow again, and the next time they try that trick—"

  Xtudent: "Excuse me, Doctors. These balls are too widely distributed in dry strata and wet strata to be one life-form. They must be religious artifacts."

  The lead Xientist's skin flashes on sides away from the xtudent. Then Lead Xientist says: "And of course you have a theory."

  Xtudent: "Of course! The pits in the balls are the clue. They are images of the God of Mining."

  Lead Xientist: Blinding burst.

  Xtudent and Underling emit horrible smell as the pool of them sizzles.

  Well, that's what I heard, and you know what half-seen scenes are like.

  "It was the eggplant."

  "No, the tourmaline."

  "Thy.on....xy hybrid...pet...a."

  "That!"

  "Brute wh... qara.....

  "Roos at the beach" copyright © Anna Tambour, was originally published in Medlar Comfits, 27 October, 2010 http://medlarcomfits.blogspot.com/2010/10/roos-at-beach.html

  The Arms of Love and Death

  A scream cut through the rainforest. A sweat-chilling, almost human cry—answered by a more frightening hush. The machete slid from Jack Lorimer's hand into a tangle of vines, but he didn't waste movement. That sound jerked him upright, poised. He was miles from camp, trapped by the Rio Tiputini on one side, and who knows what on the other—but he could imagine. Death by jaguar is a lovebite compared to death by some of the less photogenic things he'd seen, and as for those he hadn't ... He'd done the unthinkable: given his expedition colleagues the slip today. But he had to. They'd homed in on a few too many discoveries this trip.

  This was no place to be alone. He fled back towards camp, travelling as fast as a man can who has to leap over knee-high roots and under liana nooses hanging ready everywhere. When he twisted his ankle in soft humus, he stopped. His adrenalin rush had subsided, leaving him sheepish at his fear. He was bent over, breathing in great gulps of steamy air, when something ripped the undergrowth just off the path.

  It was almost on him.

  A tapir bumbled into view. Lorimer laughed. To be frightened by a tropical teddy bear! He wondered what he should do about the day. He was angry at his fear, but a shred of terror clung to him.

  Shake it off, Jack. Hundreds of feet up, it was brilliant day—down here, the light dripped green. He'd come here for 15 years, knew everything there was to know about the place. The day held no surprises that could hurt him, and he'd be back to camp before dark, so no jag would get him either. His grin was lopsided. What if anyone in the team saw me freaking out like a tourist? I'd never live it down.

  Two steps into striking out W-NW, he was hit with another scream.

  He jumped for the nearest thing—the buttress root of a giant pochota—and scraped his shins clutching a hold on the iron-hard wood with his boots. Most everything in this rainforest can climb, stupido! He scrabbled up till he reached the great bole, ripping his hands and catching his clothes on spines long as skewers.

  And the scream came on, its carrier smashing through the undergrowth.

  The sound now change
d, more piercing, more human. It rose straight up to surround him. He gripped the great spiked tree like a monkey does its mother. His hands dripped blood but he didn't feel them. That I would end like this!

  Pride forced him to unclench his eyelids and look, down into the eyes of his killer.

  The screamer didn't try to climb. She just gazed up, imploring.

  A shiver of intense relief washed over him. No one had seen him, and no one would ever tell of the time Jack ...

  She was just a small native woman, probably loco. Her right ear dripped blood. Her skin in the sieved light shone gold, green, and red from many deep scratches. She was naked as a frog.

  Damn, he wished she'd shut up. But maybe that explained why she wasn't in her village, wherever that was. He was just going to detach his skin from the tree's knives, and climb down to commence his hunt again when he saw what she was screaming about. Her left cheek was swollen with something the size of a giant jawbreaker. From that erupted what could only be described as a purple sea anemone, waving its tentacles.

  Jack's stomach muscles tightened. His throat trapped his breath. This was—-he could hardly believe his luck, the legendary brazos del amor y de la muerte, the "arms of love and death".

  In a land filled with more legends than were believable to even the most gullible, this topped them all. Most entomologists scoffed, called it brasso. Jack had always said brasso, and laughed with every team he'd come out with—about a larva of something that was so metamorphically incredible, so swift and terrible that he had never allowed himself to believe let alone create a clear mental picture of the thing, at any stage of its development.

  Seeing it now—only part of it—he realised that lust for it was the dark pull he had felt ever since his maiden, innocent collecting trip—the brazos del amor y de la muerte underlying every illegal solo foray he'd ever undertaken.

  No native would speak of it, except when so drunk on aguardiente that he would never remember what he said. And no anthropologist could be trusted.

  Now it was in his hands, almost. But this woman's scream was so god-awful, so primal-fear inducing, she distracted so much that Jack dismissed the idea of reasoning with her to get her to shut up, a distraction that could have cost him the brazos itself.